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Aftermath

Well, there’s a lot to get through on this entry. So, bullet points it is.

Firstly, the response has been a thousand times greater than ever expected. The game’s been downloaded around a thousand times, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Thanks all!

I’ve now releasedversion 0.1.3, which is full of delicious bug-fixes (including the main moving-across-map-grids bug) and can be downloaded here (scroll for bugfix list). Quite a few of you will see your suggestions in it! This is the last version until 0.2.0, which is estimated for release in a couple of months.

Thanks to new donators – you’ve been added to the Contributors list.

From now on, releases will be on Mondays, because what better way is there to start the week?

Thanks to those who have pointed out how absurd the skills list is; yeah, I went a tad overboard there (particularly those in the SA forums who made me realize this all the more strongly). See below for 0.2.0’s resolution.

QUESTIONS. Firstly, should the numpad toggle stay? I know it’s not a perfect solution, but it’s the best solution I can think of for those without numpads. Secondly, the attack list – it has been suggested that instead of pressing Enter to confirm every time, you instead just press the same key you used to move into them again to confirm, and use Tab or Shift+Tab to scroll up/down through the list. Then you would, for instance, double-tap Left to attack a creature on your left quickly, rather than Left+Enter. Thoughts?

I think Wine should now work properly with the windows version. See the downloads page for details. I’m still working on a Linux release – it’s proving tricky, but in the pipeline. Please report if you can make it work on wine with the instructions/suggestions on the downloads page – I need to know how viable a short-term solution that is!

I’ve now started work on 0.2.0, which is going to a) remove the absurd number of skills and replace them with an interesting (but still quite substantial) skill tree; significantly alter the combat mechanics to make combat faster and attacks more deadly; split up world gen and player creation, so you create a world, then can make as many players as you want for it (but only one at once!); simplify and make clearer weapons/armor mechanics; and a bunch of other little fixes and upgrades. Lastly, skills will NOT just be raised by use due to the risk of farming skills; instead, I’m going for something like an experience system and you choose where to put the points. Stay tuned…

Next week’s blog entry will talk about programming in z levels, since I promised a blog entry on this a while ago, and I aim to deliver.

9 thoughts on “Aftermath”

1) Moving on the menus with the numpad/whatever movement buttons used for in game could be a nice touch.

2)Travelling to a mountain(level 4) or a live volcano kills the client upon first move. Tried it east and west.

3)Looking via minimap(using space) has the “enter map”.

4)There should be a way of entering minimap viewing whilst you’re already in the minimap[so you move the cursor without moving the “@” to see around](this’ll help in the future when you’ll need to know if a certain city above you is the one you need or not, to have one example)

5)Make entire map visible for the purpose of easier testing. Trying to find mountains/volcano(or other) with the entire map blanked out can be a bit annoying, when you want to do it multiple times, and mapping the island you’re on only to find nothing.

I agree very heavily on the integration of using your numpad to move around in game. Due to my keyboard it is a very grueling task to use my arrow keys, but with all of that said from what I’ve seen of the game so far I love it and will continue to follow its development.

I’m totally changing the skills system for 0.2.0; you will collect experience from most activities, and then choose what skill tree you wish to invest them in.

EDIT: Wow, that’s what sleeping deprivation does to you. I took the wrong meaning of farming. Fail. Anyway, I guess the same problem applies to all RPGs, to an extent, but I have a few ideas I’ll elaborate on in a later entry.